A quiet little spot where Rod Mollise shares his adventures and misadventures...

Sunday, August 03, 2014

Down Chiefland Way with the Micro EX and AstroLive

Oh, those 1960s Florida vacations, muchachos! Mama would
organize us all, pack our suitcases, fill a cardboard box with victuals (it was
hard to convince the Old Man to stop at a freaking Howard Johnson’s for road food),
shoo us—including Daddy, who was likely on the air for a 10-meter opening—out
to the car, and we’d be off.

The three of us, or the four of us after my brother came
along, would hop in the OM’s prized 1955 Chevy Bel Air and head for the
Sunshine State. We’d have some vague destination in mind, usually Daytona Beach
or Saint Augustine, but that was just the icing. Who knew what wonders we’d discover
along the roadside? Alligator wrestlers. Live mermaids. A jungle where humans were caged and the monkeys ran free. The old U.S. Highways—90, 98, 19,
A1A—were pregnant with possibilities on those long ago summer days.

Those old-fashioned vacations are yet green in Unk’s memory,
and it is fun to try to recreate them when me and Miss Dorothy set out on our
traditional July expedition to the Chiefland Astronomy Village. Most of the attractions
I seek on those trips are far more strange and distant than Weeki Wachee Springs and its lovely mermaids, but
the idea is the same: what wondrous things will I find in Florida?

Course, you can run into some not so good things down in FL,
too. Back in the vaunted Day, it was Daddy’s inevitable flat tire on a
blisteringly hot afternoon. Now, it is the freaking weather. We had a couple of
recent Julys, 2011 and 2012, that were spectacular: nights as clear and dang
near as dark as in winter. So, as you can imagine, we were awful put out when July—actually
the whole summer—of 2013 was relentlessly cloudy. What the hail was going on?

The answer? Nothing. As Unk’s CAV buddy, Mike Harvey,
pointed out, in 2013 we had a normal
Chiefland July. Hot, hazy, and humid—and often cloudy and stormy. 2011 and
2012 were the aberrations. The ground
truth is that in July in Florida you can’t expect good observing weather. Oh,
you can hope and wish for it, but you can’t expect
it.

Funny thing, though? This year, after a horrible spring and early summer in the southland, the weather improved as the 4th and the All
Star Break came and went. Dorothy had made us motel reservations quite a while
before, since we were determined to do our Florida Vacation no matter what the
weather gods had in store. When she made those reservations in June, I wasn’t
convinced the vacation would involve astronomy. Now I was. It seemed purty sure
I would get something. How much, I didn't know, but something.

What was most astounding? As the afternoon before our
Thursday morning departure burned down into a sultry Gulf Coast night, the weather forecasts for Chiefland were holding—maybe even getting slightly better.
Thursday night was supposed to be dead clear, with the worst for the following two
days being “some passing clouds.” Unk was definitely eager if only cautiously
optimistic—the Admiral Ackbar side of his personality figgered “IT’S A TRAP!”—as
he loaded the 4Runner, Miss Lucille Van Pelt.

What did I load and what was my agenda? The first and probably the best
night would be devoted to taking prime focus DSLR shots with the Edge C8, Mrs.
Peel, and her VX mount. I am writing a review of the Edge/VX combo, and needed
some “insurance” pictures in case the weather gods chose to laugh in my face
all August long. Once that was done, I
hoped to be able to finally give the Mallincam Micro EX a test.

I’d been able to try the newest and littlest Mallincam at
the Deep South Regional Star Gaze Spring Scrimmage in April, but looking through the occasional sucker hole is no way to
check out a camera. I also wanted to try a new computer program, AstroLive, which would control the Micro
(and many other cameras).

4Runner packed and out suitcases ready, all that remained
was to while away a summer’s eve. I was feeling right good about my prospects
down Chiefland way, and I had Braves baseball and Rebel Yell at hand, so the
night was pleasant and restful and I was actually out of bed early on Thursday
morning.

Dorothy and I weren't sure about the best route to I-10 from the New
Manse, so we altered our normal routine a mite on departure morning. We skipped Mickey D’s—and Unk’s traditional pre-star party fried chicken
biscuit—in the interests of saving time. We didn't stop for food until we were well over
the Florida line and hit the Milton/Bagdad Exit, which features a Stuckey’s in
the old mode—clean, well-stocked, and full of friendly folks. Unk’s “breakfast”
repast? Why, a chili-cheese dog,
natcherly. You will be proud that I at least resisted the urge to order the
foot-long version.

The remainder of our journey was as uneventful as ever. We
did pass through a fair amount of rain, but as we approached the exit for the
Florida - Georgia Parkway for the run into Chiefland, the clouds—as they are
sometimes wont to do—began to disperse. We refueled Miss Van Pelt at the good
old Sunoco station, and Unk, to maintain tradition, grabbed a Jack Links Sasquatch Big Stick to serve as his
lunch.

When we arrived in Chiefland, we didn't have to decide what
to do. As always, we stuck to the pea-picking PLAN. Check into the motel. If
it’s not raining, head to the CAV to set up. Back to town for a supply run on
Wally World. Supper (when it’s obvious there will be observing) is usually Taco
Bell. Quick stop at the room. Out to the site to finish preparations.

How was the motel? If you are a dedicated reader of the
Little Old Blog from Chaos Manor South, you know we switched from Days Inn to
Best Western some time ago. The Days Inn was just nasty the last time we stayed there (though I’ve had somewhat
encouraging reports on it since). You also know Best Western changed chains and
is now a Quality Inn, just like the old Holiday Inn Express de-evolved into a
Days Inn. The Quality Inn is now the only game in town if you don’t want to brave the Days Inn or stay at what Unk calls “the Pregnant Guppy Motel,” a little independent
hostelry, the Manatee Springs Inn. Seems to me Chiefland is big enough to
support a new motel. Sure hope that happens someday.

Bottom line? The Quality Inn is neither much better nor any
worse than when it was a Best Western. It is sufficient. The rooms are
reasonably clean. The breakfast is edible. The staff is friendly—if a little
clueless. Only major downcheck this time? The “hot” water was tepid at best.
The motel is still preferable to tent camping, however, especially in the
summer, and is quite acceptable for three or four nights.

After we were finally settled in our room a blamed hour
after we arrived—the desk clerk couldn’t find our reservation and initially put
us in a standard room rather than the suite-like “family room” we’d requested—it
was out to the CAV to see what was what and, most of all, to set up. There was
plenty of blue sky, and it was obvious there’d be plenty of observing Thursday
night.

When we arrived at the Billy Dodd Memorial Observing Field,
I was pleased to see two of my old CAV compadres, Carl Wright and Paul LaVoie,
were onsite and ready to go. I won’t say it was pleasant setting up Mrs. Peel
and the EZ-Up in 90-degree temps, but it was doable. We took it slowly and there
was a constant breeze. Unk was only a tetch overheated and out of sorts when we
were done. Still, it was dang nice to blast the air conditioner on the way back
to town.

What’d we get at the dadgum Wal-Mart? The usual: Kolorado Kool Aid (for after run
celebrating), Jack Links and granola bars to serve as Unk’s midrats, plenty of
bottled water, and—of course—MONSTER ENERGY DRINKS.

Thence to supper. On those Thursday nights when it’s obvious
the clouds will hold sway, we repair to Bar-B-Q Bill’s for steaks and beer. It
was apparent there’d be ample sky watching on this night, however, so we
settled for Taco Bell, where Unk indulged himself with the Dorito Taco Big Box.

Supper done, it was, surprisingly, time to skedaddle. Despite the fact that sundown
wouldn’t arrive till nearly 8:30 p.m., time was tight. Losing an hour in the
process of getting checked into the Quality Inn hurt. I didn't feel rushed, but
I felt some pressure to get my final preparations done. The camera had to be
mounted on the scope. So did the guide camera. Computer had to be cabled to the
VX. Etc., etc., etc. I got everything done with some time to spare but not much time to spare.

What is there to say about Thursday night? Surprisingly, not
much. Despite Unk not having done any prime focus DSLR imaging in over two
years, it went without a hitch. The reason for that was two-fold: the new (well, new to Unk) Nebulosity 3
is even easier to use than its predecessor, and the Canon 60D I am now using
for deep sky astrophotography is likewise easier to use than my previous
astro-DSLR, a Canon 400D. The 60D has Live View, which makes focusing uber
quick, and you don’t have to worry about a pea-picking shutter interface cable
for long exposure work. Shutter control is handled by the same USB cable that
downloads images to the laptop (when you are using Nebulosity).

I managed to image four targets during the course of an
evening that slowly evolved into a stunner. Looking up at the Milky Way as it
began to burn, I opined that this July new Moon was turning out to be nearly as
good as 2011’s and maybe better than 2012’s. While seeing was not terrific, it
was OK, and away from the horizons where clouds were shuttling past off and on,
it was good and dark.

What did Unk do while his exposures were in progress? I
wandered the field admiring the video images Carl was getting with his C8/CGE
combo, and the prime focus images Paul was grabbing with his Edge C11 and
Astro-Physics mount. Wasn't much else to
do. You tell Nebulosity how many
subframes of a subject you want, how long the exposures should be, and it does
all the work—which is a good thing, since Neb probably knows a lot more about
prime focus deep sky imaging than your benighted old Uncle does. I wandered
over to the computer to check on progress occasionally or to send Mrs. Peel to
a new target, and that was all the “work” I did.

Chugged a Monster about midnight, which kept me going till 2
a.m., no prob. Actually, I could have made it well past two, but at that time
the sky, while still purty danged good, had hazed up a mite. It was still fine,
mind you, but maybe not good enough for more prime focus deep sky. I threw the
big switch, packed the computer, and stowed some of the other gear. It would
turn out Unk should have been more assiduous about protecting the astro-stuff,
but I was feeling on top of the world. It had been a splendid run under
splendid skies. What could happen?

Anyhoo, Unk was down the spooky lane of mossy old oaks, onto
highway 19, and back at the motel by 2:30 a.m. Just in time catch a Finding Bigfoot marathon on the (analog)
cable TV. Unk, still pumped and not a
bit sleepy, broke out the great big bottle of Rebel Yell I’d picked up at BubbaQue’s Liquors (right across the
street from the Quality Inn) before heading to the site.

Believe it or no, Friday morning Unk was up in time to make
it to the motel’s breakfast with Miss Dorothy. How was it? They had outstanding
biscuits and gravy. That was all I needed—well, that and a cup or three of Joe—to
see me through till lunch, so I gave it a thumbs-up.

Breakfast washed down with a gallon of coffee, D. and I
quitted the motel for a day at Duma Key. That’s our pet name for Cedar Key, a formerly sleepy fishing village on
Florida’s “undiscovered” west coast that is now a major tourist attraction.
Maybe too major. July 4 last year,
Dorothy and I tried to visit the Key, but could not find a place to freaking park.

Since we’d be passing the turnoff for the CAV on our way to
Duma Key, I asked Dorothy if she’d mind if we stopped for a few minutes to
check on the gear. It has been sprinkling rain off and on in town at breakfast time,
and I was aware I’d left a lot of stuff sitting out. Dorothy was amenable, so
we visited the field. And it was a good thing we did.

The sprinkles in Chiefland had been a major downpour at the CAV a
dozen miles away. Everything was soaked. Mrs. Peel was fine under her Desert
Storm Cover, but the table had about half an inch of water standing on it. My
observing notebook was waterlogged. So were several cardboard boxes. The camp
chairs looked like birdbaths. Dorothy and I spent the next half hour drying
everything out. Paul lent us a tarp to cover the table and chairs in case an
afternoon shower rolled through, and I resolved to always pack tarps and use
them in the future. In amateur astronomy, it’s always when you get complacent,
when you get the big head, that you get bit on the rear.

How was Cedar Key? It was as fun and picturesque as always.
We didn't spend a lot of time strolling around—it was just too darned hot—but
we had a good time. We began at Steamer’s Clam Bar,
where Unk ordered the crab cake sandwich (crazy) and the onion rings (insane).
Got to have something to wash it down with, right? Several draft brewskies saw
to that. As we sat in Steamer’s, another thunderstorm rumbled through and
dropped rain, but it missed the CAV. Thankfully, we’d got the only rain we’d
get there the whole time.

Back to the motel for...? Yep, you guessed it:
n-a-p-t-i-m-e. Unk semi-dozed and semi-slept in the cool room for about three
hours, and was rarin’ to go as sundown came on. Thursday night had been work.
Friday would be fun, if fun with a purpose.

That purpose, as above was to check the Micro. What’s a
Micro and how is it different from the other Mallincams? Heretofore, most deep
sky video cameras have used ½-inch CCD chips. Recently, though, perhaps stirred
by folks experimenting with inexpensive off-the-shelf surveillance cams,
there’s been considerable interest in 1/3-inch sensor vidcams for astronomy.

The Little Feller...

And that is what the Mallincam Micro EX is. It is a 1/3-inch
color camera, but it is definitely not an off-the-shelf one. It has been optimized
for astronomy by Mr. Rock, and is better suited for our pursuit than the
Samsung “closed circuit” cameras the folks over on the Cloudy Nights BBS like
to play with. Nevertheless, it is at heart a simple device: no cooling, only a few adjustments, small form
factor, and the aforementioned smaller imaging chip.

Sometimes small and simple is beautiful, however. The EX’s
little, nearly cubical body means you can insert it straight into the visual
back on a fork mount SCT, even with a focal reducer screwed onto the rear port,
without having to worry about the camera running into the drivebase at higher
altitudes. No star diagonal required. That is a big deal for SCT owners.

Despite an extensive menu system, there are really only four
adjustments on the Micro most users will have to fool with more than once, and
that is a damned good thing if you are a beginner. The many adjustments of my
beloved Xtreme sometimes still leave Unk scratching his head.

Another benefit of small and simple, of course, is that Mr.
Mallin can sell the camera for less than the “big” Mallincams. A barefoot Micro
is an amazing 99 bucks. With cables, power, supply, and a 1.25-inch nosepiece,
it is a still astounding 169 dineros.

I was eager to see what the little feller would do, but I’d
need something for it to image, which was not happening. Drifting clouds at
sunset had morphed into something that was not quite overcast, but was at least
very thick haze. Mr. Harvey was of the opinion that we could expect clearing by
1 a.m. I hoped he was correct.

Turned out he was. We actually began to get some improvement
sooner than that and I was able to get Mrs. Peel goto aligned well before
midnight. One of the first things folks ask about 1/3-inch chips is whether
they make goto alignment and goto a challenge. Yes, they cover less sky than a
½-inch chip at the same focal ratio (for me, f/3.3 using my old Meade reducer).
But not that much less sky, and I certainly
had no trouble with goto. Anything I requested was on the chip of the Micro
from one horizon to the other.

M13

Well, it’s not quite
right to say Unk had no trouble with
alignment. I almost always have trouble of some kind. In the course of drying
everything out that morning, I’d checked the scope, discovered I’d left the
Rigel Quickfinder turned on, and managed to mess up its aim in the course of
replacing the battery. It took a little doing to get scope and finder to agree
again, but after that, it was purty smooth sailing.

I sure was happy I’d got to try the camera back in April. In
some ways, it is that horse of a different color when compared to the Xtreme. At
least the way I use the Xtreme,
controlling exposure and other settings with the laptop. You do get a computer cable
and a software program with the Micro, but computer control with it is a different
proposition than with other Mallincams.

All the Micro’s program does is throw up a window on your
screen that duplicates the five buttons on the rear of the camera. You use the
onscreen buttons to navigate menus and make changes to settings that appear on the video screen not the computer
screen (unless you are piping video to a computer—more on that shortly). If you
have used the wired remote available for other Malincams, it is a lot like
that.

How about them settings? Although there are plenty of little
icons and submenus to navigate, as above, once you have the camera initially
set up (the instructions are clear as to how to do that) you only have a few to
worry about.

The first is found in the Exposure menu and is, yep, camera
exposure (shutter speed). Somewhat counter intuitively, it ain’t called “exposure,”
but “lens.” Whatever it’s called, it allows you to vary the Micro from a
maximum exposure of “1024x” (about 17 seconds) down to very short exposures
suitable for the Moon and planets.

The ol' Dumbbell...

The second adjustment you will use frequently is
“brightness,” which is also found under the Exposure icon. It can be varied
from 0 – 99. Just set it at a level that provides a pleasing image of your
current target.

Under the SYS (enhance) menu, you will find “gamma,” which
is like contrast. It can be set at .3, .45, .6, or 1.0. I usually run it at .45
or .6 to get a picture that is neither too dark nor too washed out.

There’s one other menu you will visit, at least once in a
while, the Color settings. These four are Automatic White Compensation
(balance), Automatic Trace Whitebalance, Manual (white balance), and “Push,”
which measures the image’s color balance. I usually just left this one on
“auto,” though I did go manual and adjust red a couple of times when imaging
nebulae.

In use, there ain’t much to running the Micro. I’d go to a
target, set the exposure to 128x or 256x for focusing, set exposure to 1024x
for imaging when I was done, and let fly. How effective is a “mere” 17 seconds
for deep sky work? Well, hell, y’all, I was limited to 10-seconds with my old
Stellacam 2, and successfully imaged thousands of objects with it. With this
color camera, 17-seconds is enough to give you decent images of any Messier object.

You are not limited to bright Messiers, however. I got a
nice pic of Pegasus’ “Andromeda Junior” galaxy, NGC 7331, with the Micro, and,
since I was in the neighborhood, moved over to the somewhat notoriously dim
galaxy group, Stephan’s Quintet. It didn't put my eye out, but it was visible.
Later in the evening, the Bubble Nebula wasn’t just there; it was showing
plenty of red color.

The Ring, natch...

Frankly, y'all, I was impressed. Despite a thin haze layer (which
gave my pictures a green-brown cast), objects looked right good, with the live
video looking substantially better than the quick grabs shown here. The
Dumbbell really wasn’t much worse than it would have been with the Xtreme under
similar conditions. Same with the Ring. The Lagoon Nebula? It was good enough
that it made ol’ Unk’s jaw drop a substantial distance. And one of the hits of
the night was considerably dimmer than any of those. NGC 1023, the peculiar
galaxy in Perseus, didn't just show its preternaturally bright central area,
but plenty of its lens shaped disk, which was golden in color.

Is the Micro for you? You could do worse. You should,
however, understand its limitations. Compared to the Xtreme, this is beginner’s camera. It is
uncooled, and its small chip hasboth warm and hot pixels. While I got good results with 17-seconds of
exposure, if you are going after the really dim junk, or just want smoother,
more detailed images, you will miss the longer exposures of the more advanced
cameras. You may also find the lack of a gain adjustment limiting. While there
is a gain setting, it is only useful in the camera’s special stacking mode, and
not for normal observing.

Like the Mallincam Xtreme and other deep sky video cameras, you will notice some amplifier glow in one of the corners of the frame at longer exposures. I don't find this disturbing with the Xtreme and it didn't bother me with the Micro either. I am after details and deep images, not pretty pictures. If you want pretty pictures, get a freaking DSLR.

The funny thing? What I thought would be most limiting, the
1/3-inch size of the chip, didn't turn out to be a handicap after all. I actually
forgot it was “just” a 1/3-inch sensor after a while. With my 8-inch SCT and
the f/3.3 reducer, the chip provided enough field to image most objects. No, I
couldn’t fit consarned Andromeda in there, but it won’t fit on a ½-inch chip,
neither.

In the end, we got about two OK hours and two
good hours Friday night. That wasn’t a lot, but the little Micro was so
trouble-free I was easily able to image several dozen subjects in that amount
of time—which included quite a while spent messing with the settings to see how everything worked. With the exception of the Micro's built in 5-frame stacking mode, that is, but I hope to try that soon (absent minded old Unk forgot all about it till we was back home). Anyhoo, at 3 a.m., the conditions were degrading again and Unk’s old
bod was reaching its “I have had enough” limit. Big Switch Time.

Back at the dadgum Quality Inn, all I could find on the tube
at 3:30 in the a.m. was the ten-millionth airing of a Man vs. Food episode. After a couple of hits of the Yell, however,
it began to seem interesting, and Unk didn't get to sleep till going on four effing
thirty.

Saturday morning, I let Miss D. do breakfast without me.
That was OK. I dang sure wanted to leave room for lunch at Bill’s. The tourist action for the day would be a visit to
Chiefland’s famous Manatee Springs State Park. You won’t see any Manatees in
the summer, but you can stroll in cool quiet beside the springs and see plenty
of other wildlife. There was a nice addition to the park this time: a new snack bar selling not just racks of ribs
done on site in a big smoker, but COLD BEER. If I hadn’t been set on Bill’s,
I coulda spent the entire day at the Springs.

Ah, yes, Bar-B-Q Bills. I’ve raved about it plenty here, so
there’s little need to say anything more this time. I will just opine that it
was as good as ever. The old-fashioned salad bar is still fresh and there still
ain’t no purple vegetables in there. And the vaunted Lunch Special is still
enormous, consisting of mucho sliced beef or pork, mound o’ fries, slaw, beans,
and a huge hunk of garlic bread. Even Unk could not finish the entire meal,
though he wanted to.

Then, finally, our last night at the CAV was upon us. What was
I gonna do? I wanted to do more Micro EX-ing, but I wanted to do it in as
simple a manner as possible. It would be nice if I could at least organize if
not pack some of the copious astro-stuff in preparation for departure morning.
I had a plan: Why not use AstroLive
and forget about the DVR recorder and the video monitor? Just run the video
straight into the laptop?

AstroLive and Dumbbell...

What the heck is AstroLive?
I wondered the same thing when its author, Kyle Goodwin, contacted me some
months back, asking if I’d be interested in trying his new program in
conjunction with the Micro. What AstroLive
was, Kyle said, was a program he intended to be the Swiss army knife of video astronomy. Not only would it allow you to
display video on your computer screen, it would let you to process images and
stack images. Hell, it would even send your scope on gotos and compose
observing lists.

Naturally, given the spring and early summer skies, I was
able to do just as much with AstroLive
as with the Micro—not squat, I mean. I was
at least able to read the documentation and have a look at the software indoors,
though. Once I glommed onto what it was supposed to do, I was impressed. The
software looked professional and clean. Everything was laid out in
logical fashion. It was not burdened with dozens of nested menus. There were
just enough to get done what needed to be done, not tons of menus and buttons
to confusticate me.

“But, Unk, how do you get Mallincam video into a computer?
Mallincams is analog and computers is digital…” You use a device called a
“frame grabber.” These days, one looks about like a USB-serial cable. Slightly oversize USB plug that goes into the computer. Cables coming out of that terminate in female phono (RCA) plugs for video and audio input. Plug the USB end into your
computer and the Mallincam video cable into the video phono plug and your are
good to go (after downloading and installing drivers the first time out,
natch).

I haven’t done a lot of this computer-video business, and
didn't have a frame grabber. But I found an “EZ Cap” on Amazon for five bucks.
This is no doubt actually a Chinese knock-off of an EZ Cap video capture cable, but
it works. The drivers probably ain’t exactly right for Win 7 64 bit, since it
throws up a weird looking noise bar at the bottom of the capture screen (which
does not impinge on the video), but, yeah, it works and delivers sharp video images.

Micro settings menu...

How easy would it be to get AstroLive working the first
time? Not easy at all, I feared. “Surprise, surprise, surprise!” as ol’ Gomer
used to say on the TV. It was duck soup. Turned on the camera, plugged the EZ
Cap in, lit off AstroLive, selected
“Micro EX” and my capture device (in the “Setup” tab on AstroLive’s main screen), and we was rolling. The video was sharp
and clear on the Toshiba Satellite’s screen, and I was able to complete the
VX’s goto alignment just like always. Unk was no little impressed.

OK, it was showing the video onscreen (the camera was using
its saved settings at this point)., but what else would AstroLive do for me? One of the other things it can do is control a
wide range of cameras including not just the Mallincams, but the Astro Systems
video cameras, and many still imaging cams as well. AstroLive will work with
the Atik Cameras, Starlight Xpress cams, and, in general terms, any still
camera for which there is an ASCOM driver.

Because of the limitations inherent in the Micro EX, you are
confined to using the same “menus-on-the-video-screen” system as when using the
Mallincam Micro control program. The controls are at least built into AstroLive, however—you don’t have to use
the Mallincam control program at all, which is convenient. Also, since the menus and
video appear on the computer display in front of you, you don’t have to look at
or fool with a separate monitor. If you are using a more sophisticated camera
like the Xtreme, AstroLive provides
built-in controls for exposure, gain, and other settings.

I started to mash the buttons on NexRemote to send Mrs. Peel to the Ring Nebula. Then I thought
better of it. AstroLive was touted as
being able to send a scope on gotos. I’d let the program tell Mrs. Peel to find M57.

In order to goto-enable AstroLive,
you have to connect it to your scope. That is easy. Once you’ve hooked computer
to mount via a serial cable, click the “Choose Mount” button in the setup tab.
That will bring up the familiar ASCOM chooser, and you can then proceed to link
the program to your scope as per normal. Since AstroLive uses ASCOM, it will control just about any scope (and any
focuser, too) under the Sun. AstroLiverequires the ASCOM platform version 6.1,
and will, interestingly, not even install if ASCOM 6.1 is not present.

Goto screen...

“Hokay, got scope setup squared away. Let’s see what she will
do.” Clicked the goto tab, and typed M57 (M 57 would also have worked, it
turned out) into the search field. AstroLive
responded with the Ring’s vitals. I selected those vitals with a mouse click,
mashed “Go to Selected,” and we was off. Not surprisingly, since the program
uses ASCOM, goto operation was flawless. AstroLive
also features a proto-planner—you can send your search results to an observing
list.

Alrighty, then. Had a dern good-looking Ring on the computer
display. What could I do with it? Going to the “Post Processing” tab, I saw the
program offered numerous tools to enhance pictures. You can adjust the video’s
histogram, subtract dark frames, and even stack frames into a finished still
image. I wanted to try all those things, but I froze up. I needed to shut down early and I had a good thing going
at the moment. I didn't want to mess it up by mashing the wrong button.

Instead, I confined myself to saving still images. AstroLive makes it easy to do that. Like
what you see in the video display? Click “Save snapshot.” A still image will be
saved to a specified location on your hard drive. The date and time of the
capture will be appended to the file name. If you’ve arrived at the object by
using AstroLive’s goto system, the
image will also have the object's catalog number in the name. Purty dang slick
if’n you axe me.

The many things AstroLive
will do doesn't end with the above. There’s also a frame and focus module that
helps you attain perfect focus if you are using a computerized motofocus system.
I didn't try that, but I will in the future—along with the post processing
stuff.

Of course, as your old Unk always says, “No software is
perfect.” I’ve been fairly raving about AstroLive,
but there are some things it doesn't do that I’d like it to do. At the top of
the list is “capture live video.” I do like to save my video for viewing on my
big screen TV. I have my fingers crossed on that once—Kyle says he is working
on it right now. I would also like to see a night-vision setting for the program. And the
goto system’s database/search needs to be slightly more robust in my opinion—I’d
like more search options and more data.

M15...

Finally, while the documentation is good enough to get you
started, it is definitely a work in progress. Several sections, including the
one on Goto, are missing in action: “This
section is coming soon.” On the other hand, the program is well-designed and
intuitive enough that you, like me, will no doubt be able to wing it.

In the end, how good is AstroLive?
What ought to tell you something is that I have not complained about what the
program does and how it does it. Sure, I’d like to see it do a couple more
things, but what it does seemed danged near perfect to me and I wouldn’t change
a fraking thing. I can hardly wait to try it with my more capable Mallincam
Xtreme. The days of my beloved StarShoot DVR recorder and my old portable DVD player/monitor
may be over thanks to AstroLive.

At midnight approached, the sky was actually holding. But
not for me. As always on the last night, 12 o’clock was my designated
turns-into-a-pumpkin time. I pulled that accursed Big Switch, secured the gear
(it sure was nice not to have to disconnect and pack the DVR and the DVD player),
and was offsite by 12.

At the motel, with a little help from the Ghost Adventures and the Yell, I
ruminated, Muchachos. Not that it took much thinking (or what passes for that
in Unk’s case) to conclude this trip would rank among the great ones. As we packed Miss Van Pelt Sunday morning, everybody
on the field once again heard Unk’s old CAV mantra: “Had a great time; just want to come back
soon.”

Nota Bene: You can see many more pictures from our Chiefland Odyssey on Unk's Facebook page...

Hi RodYou mentioned that the many adjustments for the Extreme leave you scratching your head sometimes. Me too. At Rock Mallin's star party this weekend the developer of the mallincam control software did an excellent presentation which covered all features of the software and then some. I believe the PowerPoint will be placed on the mallincam website and a video of the presentation may be placed on youtube. You will have to watch for it. Lance

Along the lines of small form factors, i've been quite happy with my little Mallincam Junior (which Mallin doesn't sell anymore). Its cubish tinyness fits quite nice on the end of my ST80 finderscope, and at 2s integration it's quite responsive as i pan the scope around.I really like the combination of widefield plus narrowfield views. Sounds like this MicroEX might be useful for the same thing.